What is Spam? SES NY

Her and Cutts - why is it that Tim Mayer seems to be the only public SE rep that has his head screwed on?

Tim Mayer is a very good person.

laugh

Say that again. Knowing Greg, he must have had very good laugh reading IHU comments at SEWF. I know I did.

..but why oh why is IHU always out there touting his white horn? If you're as sick of it as I am, I'm surprised you haven't made a snickering comment 'bout it yet Nick ;)

IHU should have been banned along time ago from SEW but that's their problem - let's keep to the larger subject if possible - beating on Doug is too easy, and getting rather tired... :)

What interests me most in this, is the clear propaganda being shoveled out by Google, vs the "well, im not going to advocate spamming, but we all know the score" from Yahoo

Public Relations: I think Google is starting to see a big shift. Not everything that comes out of their mouths is being eaten up with quite the unquestioning adoration of the masses as it once was.

Well, really though if you read what Shari calls 'spam' is what I call 'putting non-relevant content on your site'. I don't even know anyone who would want to do that anyway since it won't convert.

If I am looking for baby shoes and I get a site with boobs -- which technically could be classified as a 'baby item' if you think about what their real purpose is but that is beside the point -- then I am going to click out of it anyway.

So I am not really sure what her big fuss is. Her argument sounds like it is from 1998.

Have you ever noticed that the people who are supposedly 'black hat' don't rip on those who choose to do business differently than they do? I can't say that about those who claim to be 'white hat'.

I've said it before: This hat business is divisive to the industry and a form of classism. Let's just agree that we all do business differently. And that is ok.

So with my clean site I abide by google rules, but fall foul of yahoos. Ditto the other way, oh come on.

We have friends and clients who throw up "stuff" the best engine will survive by serving relevancy. Google/Yahoo you created the seo road map for this stuff, your problem to sort it.

As a surfer if I am looking for something and end up at the right place that offers it then great. Did I get redirected, etc etc, so what.

DougS

As a surfer, i don't acutally use Google or Yahoo half as much as I did 6mts ago...

Im far more likely to go to technorati or delicious or wikipedia or answers.com

Not saying i dont use them, i do, every day. Just not half as much as i used to...

What I don't get is people and companies that promote how "ethical" they are and that they don't spam when it can be easily proven that they do in fact "spam" whenever it suites them. I personally find that very un-ethical! You should at least be honest about what you do with your clients and your marketing in general.

:)

DougS

Let's not go there eh? Hats are very boring, and we've done it a million times :)

As we're pointing to some great coverage of what looks like a cracking session, this thread is cool - but it remains cool only as long as we dont let it devolve into the usual "he said she said" bollocks.

Thanks guys.

nuff said.

Public Relations: I think Google is starting to see a big shift. Not everything that comes out of their mouths is being eaten up with quite the unquestioning adoration of the masses as it once was.

It's about time ...

Doung has deleted his posts from the thread - shame SEW still allows users to do that, even though it can make thread become meaningless and confused with deleted posts.

Still, it's interesting to see the different responses - Yahoo! are really coming across shining at the moment - with webmasters, not above them - the latter being the position Google can be too easily perceived to take.

MSN and Yahoo both directly are integrating ppc into their search, unlike google who indirectly do it by serving up adsense sites. So do msn/yahoo care if the first organic site in any money area is spam? If I was msn/yahoo would I worry that much about organic search, the punter always gets to a site that offers what the searcher was looking for. All msn/yahoo have to do is make sure their algo basically does the job and let the seo's then work out how to rank the most suitable iste in them.

and Cutts - why is it that Tim Mayer seems to be the only public SE rep that has his head screwed on?

Maybe a fair comment in the current climate but for historical accuracy lets not forget [disclaimer at foot] that Tim is ex Inktomi. They were [are?] the biggest bunch of ***** ever to inhabit the search space. The day that POS company was bought and burid by Y! was, excepting wedding day, birth of children etc etc, the happiest day of my life.

Disclaimer - Everyone I know that knows Tim speaks *very* highly of him. In fairness same goes for cutts too but maybe a shade less than in days gone by. Thurow, nah.

Didn't some search engines allow you to put some cloaked spam in their index, if you paid them:)

DougS

PS. NFFC you must have had some sad days, but alas thats what happens when you are a Forest fan.